Why a Dermatologist Should Create an Immersive Ad Experience on Facebook (and how)?

Facebook has quickly become a favorite destination for marketers to launch their marketing and advertising campaigns. It has a mammoth user base, tremendous user engagement and laser-focused targeting options.

It consists of a variety of components (videos, text, still images and CTA buttons) that together tell a story. Your audience can swipe through the carousel of images and zoom into individual images to view finer details.

Wendy’s created a Canvas campaign, consisting of GIFs breaking down the ingredients of their cheeseburger. And, they managed to get 65 seconds of average view time. Indeed, 2.9% of the viewers got to the bottom of the ad and tried Wendy’s restaurant locator, as well.

Let’s start the article by looking at the main reasons why your business should consider Canvas in your Facebook advertising. Later on, you’ll see a step-by-step breakdown of how to create your first Facebook Canvas ad experience.

This is especially useful for the smaller screen, since mobile users are in a distracted mode and pop-up ads feel disruptive. Canvas captures attention and provides value to the user in a memorable, as well as interactive, manner. For example, a user will need to tilt-to-view panoramic images.

Before you start creating a Canvas, it’s recommended that you visualize the kind of experience that you want to give your audience and have all of the creative components handy.

Once you click on the ‘Create’ button, you’ll be met with the Canvas Builder. Here, you can assign a name to your new Canvas (only for your personal reference and invisible to the people that will see your ad).

You can also choose a theme/background for your Canvas, by clicking on the ‘> Select a Theme’ button. You can choose a white, black or custom color (by entering its hex code) background. This is especially useful for the text boxes/empty spaces in your Canvas.

If you want to edit a finished canvas, then your best option is to duplicate the existing one (from the actions drop down menu). Then, edit it in the new draft form.

Step #2 – Add components inside the canvas builder

Facebook will now provide you with 3 default components: header, photo and button. But, you’re free to move these components or delete them, by using the trash can icon.

The recommended resolution for the header (that will always stay at the top of your canvas) is 120 x 44 pixels (you can use images up to 882 x 66 pixels, though). Unlike other Canvas components, you can only have one header.

Next, you’ll need to click on the “Add Component” button at the very bottom. You’ll get a selection of different types of components.

You can add as many different types of components as you want (several of the same type as well). Then, click ‘OK.’

After the header, you’ll get the photo component. You can add up to 20 photos inside your Canvas. Note that images will use the full screen width by default.

You can use 2 to 10 images (of the same size) and specify destination URLs in each (unless you use the tilt to pan option for showcasing wider images). To add images, press the +Carousel scaling button.

Next, you get a video component. Facebook recommends that you use portrait orientation that doesn’t occupy the full-screen. Otherwise, your landscape videos will also automatically resize themselves to play in portrait orientation (with ugly black bars on either side).

Once you’ve added desirable components, it’s time to move on to the next step.

Step #3 – Preview your Canvas, rearrange components and Finish

You can save your work, so far, as a draft. But, don’t click the Finish button, yet. As I mentioned earlier, this will lock your Canvas. You might be getting a quick preview of your Canvas, so far, in the right sidebar.

Once you start seeing good interaction with your storytelling, you can consider pairing your Canvas with a landing page. This ensures that you get a chance to convert those warm visitors and also make up for the loss of any lead generation form inside Canvas.

Conclusion

Facebook Canvas is an incredible storytelling opportunity for brands. It isn’t available to every marketer, though (only Power Editor users). You can place a request to access the Canvas Builder inside Power Editor, by completing this form.If you already have access to the Canvas Builder, then I recommend that you experiment with the immersive ad experience opportunity.